Rich as Rich Can Be

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

The hottest trend among comedic talk show hosts in recent months has revolved around bashing Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, his personal wealth, and his ranking in the “one percent.”

But have these famous television “comedians” forgotten that they too are far from belonging to the “99 percent” when it comes to monetary earnings?

“Mitt Romney just barely won the Republican primary in Ohio by one percent. Then Romney made the mistake of saying, ‘ladies and gentleman, tonight is a victory for the one percent!” Conan O’Brien, who is received a $45 million exit deal from NBC in 2010 and has an estimated net worth of $75 million, exclaimed.

Jay Leno, who reportedly makes $32 million a year from his “Tonight Show” gig alone, and is reported to have a net worth of around $150 million, frequently incorporate Romney-related rich jokes into his late night program.
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David Letterman, who is reported to have earned $45 million with an overall net worth upwards of $400 million relishes Romney’s riches for ratings too, having made such jokes as “last month Mitt Romney raised $76 million. He found it in an old sport-coat pocket.”

Jimmy Fallon, worth about $16 million, also mocked: “A new survey found that Mitt Romney is ahead of Obama among those who make $36,000-$90,000. Or as Romney put it, ‘And they said I can’t connect with the poor.’’

Rather stunning some of the numbers that are next to the names of these also-ran, wanna-be and has-been comedians.

After all, you know, when the economy is completely screwed up and tanking, and some guy runs for President claiming to possess the business acumen required to fix it — I would expect that guy to have a net worth in the hundreds of millions, or at least dozens of millions. Would be rather surprising if he didn’t, right? To say nothing of, it would lead to a few things having to be explained…

Some guy who tells jokes for a living? There seems to be some law-of-the-universe in place, that if they’re well known enough that I might have heard their name, their net worth has to be in the eight digits. Maybe there really is one.

You know, I do get to hear their jokes every now and then on the morning radio. Some of these guys were good back in the day, and lately have gotten really hit-and-miss. And there is the matter of, when they “hit,” they’re not the ones who wrote the joke, it’s some writer who did that…we don’t know the writer’s name, looks like the situation is people are getting compensated for having their own name becoming well-known, so there is a likelihood the writer isn’t worth as much. And you have to wonder: If the easy pathway to a two-comma bank account balance is simply delivery…maybe you can think of a good joke, maybe you can’t, but if the audience likes your voice and your inflections and doesn’t find you too ugly, here’s your mega-supersize-check, whether you understand your own jokes or not…are we on our way to the point where basic subsistence depends on that as well?

Certainly, we’re on our way to: You are disqualified from becoming the leader of a nation that needs some open questions settled, so its economy can recover and thrive — if you know how to make money. And if that isn’t an Idiocracy, then nothing is.

People like this must, almost inevitably, be acutely and painfully aware of the gigantic, perverse gulf between their compensation/wealth and any meaningful contribution they’ve made to society. Belittling and taking down others with comparable wealth is necessary out of pure psychological need, if only as a defense/denial mechanism.

I can’t gin up a great deal of irritation about this. They’re in the business of telling jokes, and a rich guy’s money is an obvious target. Some of the jokes aren’t funny, is all. (Jon Stewart, of course, was in “clown nose off” mode when he chided Romney for his barely-less-than-Stewart wealth, and that’s where a charge of hypocrisy actually sticks.)

If anything, I’m mildly irritated that they don’t find any similar targets for humor about President Fish in a Barrel; that they use their legitimate reason for mild japery as a smokescreen for a one-sided approach. But hey, even there, if they want to do their job poorly instead of well merely out of loyalty to their voting preference, have at it kids.

If I got mad at rich people for telling money jokes about other rich people, I would have to get mad at borscht belt comics firing off hoary old vaudeville one-liners about ethnicity or religion, or mad at lawyers telling lawyer jokes, or mad at Down Goes Brown and his long series of parody blogs and videos about hockey. I couldn’t watch half the celebrity roasts in existence.

The unevenness of the approach – and out-of-touch people mocking others for being out-of-touch – offends me more when it’s part of the partisan press; I’ll let the late-night crowd have all the fun (loosely defined) they please, if in exchange I can get the MSM to actually do some reporting and leave the bullshit narrative-building by the wayside.

As far as cultural planting of the “GOP is out-of-touch” seed, yes, I am aware that this is how it’s done – that the late-nighters have more influence than a media machine so obviously divorced from reality. But I think the late-nighters don’t have that influence nearly as much anymore. Every hashtag they try to promote winds up turning into an avalanche of mockery of their sacred cows; their influence is being fought and challenged in every new forum available to us. That’s the way to bring the fight to them.